I have to admit that I loved the looks of the 300C at first sight. The huge doors and small windows brought back memories of classic chopped street rods, and the stance said “aggressive” all over it.

Up close, the car was even more appealing. The damn thing was HUGE. You really do not realize just how big this car is until you get close to it.

They put the room to good use, too. I not only have trouble being too tall for little roadsters, I even have problems in sedans. When I decided I wanted the Lincoln LS a few years back, I had to do a fair amount of shopping around for a V8 model that didn’t have the sunroof — since I typically end up in the headliner of cars with sunroofs.

Arabica coffee beans are known for a better-flavored coffee. There are two main species of coffee beans that are grown for sale: Robusta and Arabica. Gourmet coffee houses serve the smooth and very palatable Arabica coffees, while the worst cup of coffee you ever had probably came from a pot of bitter Robusta coffee that had been sitting for hours.

A medicinal beverage in Asia for almost 4000 years, green tea is creating a splash in Western society recently. The humble tea leaves belie a bittersweet taste, delicate texture and unique aroma that give rise to a wide array of health benefits.

History

Green tea has been a traditional drink in Japan for over a thousand years, originating in 2737BC as Emperor Shen Nung caught the freshest aroma when some leaves accidentally fell into his cup of simmering water. This royal discovery led to a rich store of wonderful stories passed down from generation to generation, of wonderful health and vitality bestowed upon all of those who drank this beverage.

In “A look at the science behind meditation”:http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/112/science/A_look_at_the_science_behind_meditation.shtml the Boston Globe reports that a new study indicates that mediation increases immune system function, speed of rebound from stressful events, and tends to shift brain activity to patterns more common to “habitually calm and happy” people. (via “Rebecca’s Pocket”:http://www.rebeccablood.net/ )

Well duh.

It doesn’t take much study of nearly any “path to enlightenment” to figure out that periodically affecting an altered, contemplative consciousness is common to virtually all of them.

Whether it’s “sitting zazen”:http://www.mro.org/zmm/zazen.shtml, “being mindful”:http://www.ramsjb.com/talamasca/avatar/mindfulness.html, “chanting”:http://www.kwanumzen.com/practice/chanting.html or praying, done right the effect is much the same—shifting to an “alpha brain wave pattern”:http://brain.web-us.com/brainwavesfunction.htm.

In alpha, both hemispheres tend to “synchronize”:http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~weinberg/MantraEvaluation.html, and brainwave “voltage”:http://www.aaets.org/arts/art47.htm goes up dramatically.

Once you develop the ability to do that at will, a lot of other interesting things tend to start to happen. Among other things, this is the “flow” state taught to athletes to get themselves into the “zone”.

If you’ve never meditated, here’s an introduction from one of my favorite authors, Alan Watts. “Still the Mind: An Introduction to Meditation”:http://spoerlein.iwarp.com/mind1.html

You can even learn how to do it (and what it’s like) without doing any of the work. By listening to a binaural beat pattern through a set of headphones, you can entrain any brainwave pattern you like.

If you’d rather toss out a couple of dollars for a good audio entrainment program than learn how to do it for free, then you might want to check out “Centrepoint’s HoloSync”:http://www.centerpointe.com/links.cfm?ad=27150 audio product. disclaimer: I’m a Centrepoint affiliate, and that’s an affiliate link

Do it any way you prefer, but do it. What do you have to lose?

If you don’t like it, you can always go back to being a “Miserable Asshole™”:http://www.miserable-asshole.com.

Hey, it’s your neurology; decide for yourself whether you want to learn how to use it or not.